Most of us have been sent on numerous training courses and programmes throughout our careers, but how much of this training has actually led to our behaviour changing when we return to the workplace?

The answer, according to research, is very little. Training has been shown to be as low as 7% effective at changing our behaviour in the workplace. It is fine at delivering knowledge but we generally don’t ever apply it.

Let’s face it – we’ve all been there!
I remember being sent out on a fantastic Time Management training course – the trainer was engaging, enthusiastic and knowledgeable and the tools and techniques were fantastic. We had a great day and I was keen to return to work and put them into practice, knowing they would make a huge difference.

When I got back to work, I faced a mountain of emails and meetings to catch up on, so didn’t get round to putting it into place immediately. The file went onto the end of my desk to remind me to do something about it, but something else always came up which demanded more attention. Eventually the file was put on a shelf –I’m not sure where it is anymore.

I’ve got a certificate, but apart from that, nothing changed. I’m still rubbish at managing my time! Sadly, the same is true of most training – it is a complete waste of money as nothing really changes as a result.

UNTIL…you add coaching.

If you provide effective coaching support alongside a training intervention then, according to the same research, the effectiveness of the training programme could be increased to as much as 83% at changing the behaviour of participants back in the organisation.

Coaching, if it is done correctly (see our blog on Effective Coaching), can help complete the Kolb learning cycle:

A simple way of getting more out of the training you carry out would be to coach the participants yourselves:

• Before the participant attends the course, sit down with them and establish some real objectives of what they want to get from the training and what they want to change
• Following the training, coach them through to deciding what action they will take to implement the learning from the course
• A couple of weeks later, coach them again to ensure that the action is taken and review the results, outcomes and learning from it.

All this isn’t that easy, which is why we provide support to enable organisations to transform their people.

About Yeast

At Yeast specialise in delivering Leadership and Management interventions which will make a real difference. We only provide coaching based development programmes which are tailored to the needs of the organisation.

We compress the time we spend delivering information during our programmes as much as possible, instead concentrating on the element which adds the most value – coaching participants to do something with the information, knowledge and skills they learn. This is how we help our clients to transform their organisations and culture.

If you like what you see here, click on this link and fill in your details. A member of the delivery team (we don’t employ salespeople) will get in touch as soon as possible and start helping you to transform your organisation.